Along with a heaping helping of far-left socialist candidates, Democrats have sprinkled in a few self-described Christians in areas where such a label could help them win an election.

The most notable example is the U.S. Senate race in Texas, where Democrat James Talarico has paid lip service to his faith on the campaign trail while also promoting his party’s leftist agenda.

But critics point to a series of prior remarks during sermons and media appearances that they say do not reflect a genuine understanding of the Christian faith.

The New York Post reported this week about one 2023 video that recently resurfaced:

Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian and Texas state rep., admitted in his 2023 sermon that he is sometimes reluctant to share his faith, while warning, “There is a cancer on our religion.”

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“God is so much bigger than our human categories. God is not a Presbyterian. God is not a Christian. God is not a noun at all. God is a verb. God is not a being. God is being self. God is love,” Talarico told a congregation at St. Andrews’ Presbyterian Church.

“That’s why Jesus is against anything that gets in the way of that love between neighbors, including religion. That’s why he’s always breaking religious rules,” he added. “That’s why he says sinners will see the kingdom of heaven before religious people do.”

Later in the same article:

“Christian nationalism is a sectarian movement based on mutual hate,” he argued. “Jesus came to transform the world. Christian nationalism is here to maintain the status quo. They have co-opted the Son of God.”

“They’ve turned this humble rabbi into a gun-toting, gay-bashing, science-denying, money-loving, fear-mongering fascist,” he added. “And it is incumbent upon all Christians to confront it and denounce it. Christian nationalism is on the rise.”

“We are closer than we think to a Christian theocracy.”

Examples Talarico cited during his sermon on Christian nationalism wreaking havoc include the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, a push “to replace public schools in Texas with private Christian schools,” and the Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol.

His remarks received some social media opprobrium:

The Washington Times offered another example earlier this year:

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The audio, shared by the Republican National Committee’s research arm, has intensified scrutiny over Mr. Talarico’s theological views as he faces Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the November 2026 general election. 

Mr. Talarico made the remarks as a guest on the “Activist Theology” podcast hosted by Roberto Che Henderson-Espinoza, a self-described nonbinary, transgender, Latinx theologian who previously taught courses including “Queer Theory and Theology” and “The Ethics of Liberation” at Duke Divinity School. The interview is dated March 2021. 

In addition to the remark about hating Christianity, Mr. Talarico told the hosts that his “whiteness” and “masculinity” limited his imagination about what was possible, praised his longtime minister, Jim Rigby of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, as a “true white traitor,” and argued that Christianity’s political power derives partly from the fact that opponents share the tradition.

“The reason I think Christianity can be powerful in our context in this country is because so many of our political opponents share that kind of, that tradition,” he said, calling Jesus Christ a socialist. 

Mr. Talarico also told the hosts he kept returning to Christianity despite his tensions with it.

“I always get drawn back into it because nowhere else, in no other political philosophy, in no other economic theory, do I find anything as truly radical or revolutionary as the teachings of that barefoot Rabbi,” he said. 

Here’s the full clip of Talarico’s 2023 sermon:



This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

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